26 January, 2019

We are gathered at the 2019 conference of the Anabaptist Association of Australia & New Zealand to make this statement:

Aboriginal peoples’ voices and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ voices have been speaking to us for over 230 years; we have heard them, yet we have failed to listen.

As part of the broad Christian faith, we acknowledge that our ancestors in faith were part of the oppression of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples and that we have not been robust in our defence of Aboriginal people’s rights and Torres Strait Islander people’s rights. Our voices have been too quiet with regard to the continuing oppression they suffer. We are sorry.

Creator Spirit, Lord God, and Papa Jesus have listened, and have witnessed the injustices and sought truth, justice, and relationship during that time. We say the time for listening is now. We say the time for acknowledgement, solidarity, and action is now.

We acknowledge that Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples are the first peoples of the sovereign Nations and Islands of these lands and waters we now call Australia, including its bays, harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon the coast. Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples possessed these lands and waters under their own laws and customs, which were passed down from ancestors since the Creation – according to the common law from “time immemorial,” and according to science more than 65,000 years ago.

This sovereignty was never ceded, and has never been extinguished. We seek substantive constitutional reform and structural reform, to empower Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples to take a rightful place in their own country. We believe Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander sovereignty can shine through as a fuller expression of Australia’s nationhood. Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples will walk in two worlds and their cultures will be a gift to these lands and waters now called Australia and to the world.

In solidarity we echo the calls of Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
We echo the call for the establishment of a First Nations Voice enshrined in the Constitution.

We echo the call for a National Truth, Justice, and Conciliation Commission.

We echo the call for Treaty and Treaties.

In solidarity, we stand with Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples and together call for:

• the implementation of all recommendations of the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
• a royal commission into Aboriginal Incarceration Rates
• the implementation of all recommendations of the 1997 Bringing Them Home Report
• a review of all recommendations from all Coronial Inquests into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody
• a royal commission into the New Stolen Generation, the appalling, continuing high rate of child protection removal of Aboriginal children from their families.

Finally, we make the following commitments:

We commit to ensuring Aboriginal Christian Leaders are represented at events run by the Anabaptist Association, as keynote speakers, workshops leaders, invited guests, and attendees and we will offer hospitality to those leaders wherever possible.

We commit to acknowledging the Sunday before January 26 as Aboriginal Sunday, as declared to the Protestant Churches by William Cooper in 1940, and as re-established by Aboriginal Christian Leaders, Aunty Jean Phillips and Brooke Prentis.

We commit to acknowledging National Reconciliation Week (27 May to 3 June), and NAIDOC Week (first Sunday of July to second Sunday of July).

We commit to “paying the rent” by donating one-tenth of our organisation’s annual surplus, as disclosed in the annual accounts presented at our Annual General Meeting, to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christian leaders and ministry in their work towards seeing God’s justice embodied in this land.

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All praise be to the God of all creation, in whom difference dwells in perfect relationship, and in whom love is fulfilled as holy communion. In Christ we have glimpsed reconciliation: humbling oneself, becoming nothing, laying down one’s rights and life, in order to make peace. It is toward such beauty that creation pilgrimages, when it will be transfigured, and all things will finally find their place and purpose. Until then, we listen for the groaning of creation and the cry of the oppressed — the sounds of the Spirit — and seek here and now to be people of the transfiguration. Give us strength, O Lord, to be ministers of your reconciliation.